Hi, I am writing (or trying to write) a novel, but I am just wondering something. I'm at the end of my first chapter, and I have realised, when it is finished it is only going to be about 1000 words long, is this ok for a chapter or do you think it needs to be a bit longer? I origonally hoped for the chapters to be about 1500 but I just couldn't do it.
Good grief, does nobody bother with the search function? There are about umpteen million threads asking this question. And to answer it, it doesn't matter. The chapter length is entirely up to you. I've seen chapters as short as a couple of words, and as long as a several thousand. The important thing is not the length, but that you put the chapter break where it fits. It makes no sense to needlessly pad them out to reach some arbitrary word count. Just write the novel, and then worry about things like this
No worries. I always find, when writing, the most important thing is to get the idea itself down on paper. Once that's done, you can edit and format it until you're happy with it- but it's much quicker and more efficient to do all the worrying in the editting stage, when you have something concrete to work with, than while you're still writing it.
